I LOVE Vancouver. If I had to choose an international city to live in , it would be a toss up between Paris and Vancouver. I also love talking about wine to people and the Vancouver International Wine Festival gave me the opportunity to do that in such great surroundings. I learned several amazing things at the festival this past week.

1) Robert Mondavi is credited with starting the festival.

Many people came up to me to let me know this fact. He is very well respected here and one person even credited him with being the catalyst for Vancouver’s thriving wine and food scene that is has today. This further cements my belief that Mr. Mondavi was a force to be reckoned with and full of boundless energy and passion for sharing wine with people. I only hope that I can live up to at least half of that for my career.

2) Canada has some startlingly good wines.

From the austere and crisp Benjamin Bridge sparkling wine (Light and Bubbly) to the ripe and luscious Burrowing Owl Cabernet Franc (Spicy and Smoky) that we had with dinner last night, to the elegant and intense Inniskillin Ice Wine(Sweet and Luscious), Canada has some amazing wines to offer and we rarely see them in the rest of the world. I find with most countries to which I travel the best wines are the ones that are found domestically and Canada is no different.

3) The Vancouver International Wine Festival is Fantastic!

It is well organized, well run, and has enough representation from all countries that you feel you have indeed sampled a large portion of the world of wine but not so large that one can easily be overwhelmed. One of my MW study partners, Matt, and I had enough opportunities in between pouring to run around and work on our blind tasting skills with virtually every style of wine we would need in the room. Ice was never too far away and rinse water was plentiful. There were enough people emptying spittoons that they never were more than half full at any given time. This year’s country of focus was Australia and admittedly, while I am not a huge Shiraz fan, the wineries really put on a good showing with lots of Rieslings, Chardonnays, Semillons, Cabernets, and Bordeaux blends to get a good sense of what is going on down under.

There were also non-wine related observations…

4) Leather pants appear to be back in style.

I counted no less than 15 individuals sporting leather pants. You see one person and you assume they are quirky and perhaps a bit non-conformist. You see two people, and you think vaguely wonder if it is protection from the still slightly chilly wind. You see 6 people and you wonder if you missed a fashion article on how the new trend for spring is leather leggings. You see 15 people and it is pretty certain that the leather pant/legging is here for the season.

5) There are many types of VIWF visitors.

There are those which are jaded and wander the rooms glancing above your heads at the signs, peering over the shoulders at the people currently being served at your table, with a non-interested aloof look that suggests they are wondering what they are doing among the rest of the rabble in the room. There are the interested tasters who resolutely work the room picking and choosing from the different wines and occasionally asking questions. There are the people with plans and are on a mission announcing at their arrival that they are ONLY tasting Pinot Noir today! There are the new to wine tasting visitors that don’t realize they are supposed to be spitting and within 20 minutes of the start of the tasting they are already weaving about and you end up spilling wine on them because they can’t hold their glass steady enough and you are trying to pour the smallest amount possible without looking like you are trying not to serve them. There are other winery representatives, taking a break from their own booths to tour around the room. Then there are my personal favorites, the avid enthusiasts, that have great questions and generally will come with one to 3 other avid enthusiasts. Once these types find out one is a winemaker, you’d best be on your top game! “How do you know when to pull a wine out of barrel?” “What is the meaning of neutral oak?” “What’s the difference between Napa Valley and Carneros?” “What process do you use to determine your blends?” I love these folks. It makes my time at the table very exciting.

I loved my time in Vancouver this week and it was a fitting finale to my time as the red winemaker for Robert Mondavi. At the end of this week, my family, and I are driving out of Napa bound for New York. I can’t believe it has gone by so quickly! Don’t worry though. I still have plenty of blogging left in me! Stay tuned for next Monday!

This past weekend was devoted to the 2015 Premiere Napa Valley. It is always an amazing experience but this one was bittersweet for me because it is very likely the last for a very long time that I was involved with one of the lots. Our lot for Robert Mondavi Winery was lot #13 made up of all 5 red Bordeaux varieties grown in Monastery Block in To Kalon. The week’s celebration started off for me on Tuesday with hosting 3 writers at the “Down and Dirty” session of the Wine Writer’s symposium which was also held this week. We took them through the winery and then showed them how to stir Chardonnay lees in one of our Reserve Chardonnay lots.

The next event that I attended was Friday afternoon at Far Niente where many of the wineries of Oakville came together to show off their wines to prospective bidders. I was able to taste quite a few of these wines before the crowds showed up. Harlan is always a favorite of mine as is Opus One. Other lesser known favorites included the Detert Cabernet Franc and Franciscan’s Malbec based auction lot. I was very happy with our lot as well and many tasters seemed to agree. That night, my husband and I went over to Raymond Vineyards for the NapaGras party. Brian works for Raymond and was able to introduce me to Jean Charles Boisset, the host and life of the party. I was excited to go given the party’s reputation for being an experience to say the least and it completely lived up to the hype with good wines, fantastic food, off the wall performances, all set to a thumping, rhythmic beat of club music that mimicked one of my personal playlists very well.

Saturday’s main event flew by quickly for me. I didn’t arrive in the tasting hall until noon and at that point I only had 30 minutes to quickly taste around the room. The highlights were Tim Mondavi’s Continuum, Brand (also from Prichard Hill), Stag’s Leap Winery, Hoopes Vineyard, and Corison Winery. Unfortunately the Shafer was completely poured out by the time I arrived so I didn’t get the chance to taste that one. I also tasted Spiriterra Vineyards Muscadine offering, a sweet, white wine in 375mL bottles that was one of the finest Muscadines that I have had the pleasure of tasting. Having tasted quite a few awful ones, I feel I can speak with some authority on this. After that round of speed tasting, I ran upstairs to grab lunch and settle in to the auction room for the short wait to the Mondavi lot auction. By lot #9 my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking. It’s the ultimate judgement of your wines and for me it feels like baring your soul for the masses. It’s personal. You spend so much time with these wines. The 2013 vintage was my first and only Cabernet vintage from grape to bottle at the winery so I was very anxious to see how it would be received. The auction felt like it took only seconds, it was over so quickly. After the fall of the gavel our lot went for $60,000. It is a very respectable sum and I’m happy people enjoyed it.

This week, I’m off to Vancouver, British Columbia for the Vancouver International Wine Festival and the following week we pack up and leave for New York. Life goes on and it is busy!

While I was at Unified two weeks ago, during the State of the Industry talk, Jon Fredrickson of Gomberg, Frederickson, and Associates was giving his Wine Market Update. I wrote down one sentence that didn’t really strike a chord with me until I was typing up all my notes from the sessions I had attended, earlier last week. There, buried as the fifth and last bullet point under the justifications as to why wine is dropping placements on- premise was this sentence…

Wine is losing its prestige image.

As I retyped this sentence into my document, the MW student side of my brain took over. This would be a great Contemporary Issues question for the MW theory exam when changed to this…

Wine is losing its prestige image. Discuss.

Now obviously this is not a question since there is no question mark. That is the tricky thing about MW exam questions. There is often what I like to call “hidden questions”. Questions within questions and unless one can figure out how many questions you are REALLY answering one does not have a chance at passing. There are three hidden questions in the statement above.

What is a Prestige Image?

Does wine have a Prestige Image?

Is wine losing whatever Prestige Image it does have?

One could also add a fourth question to answer as well. 4) Is this a bad thing for the wine industry? The general opinion I gathered is that Frederickson seemed to think it was. Now customers going to restaurants and bars have other options to choose from such as craft beers and spirits. Wine listings by the bottle are down 16% year over year and by the glass options are down 12% according to research done by Charles Gill of Winemetrics in Fairfield, CT. However, later in his talk Frederikson eludes that the decline seems to be focused on the low end of the market (wines below $9.00) and that above that, the premium category is still growing.

Which brings me back to the questions above.

What is a Prestige Image?

There are two definitions that one must consider here both from Webster’s Dictionary.

Prestige = Widespread respect and admiration felt for someone or something on the basis of a perception of their achievements or quality.

Image = a representation of the external form of a person or thing.

Therefore it is safe to conclude that a Prestige Image is defined as widespread respect and admiration felt for a representation of something on the basis of a perception of their achievements or quality

2. Does wine have a Prestige Image?

Among wine industry folks I would have to say that it does. However, we are not the majority of the population that we would like to think that we are. Again, according to Frederikson’s talk 40% of the population of the US doesn’t drink any alcohol, at all. I would venture a guess that among the 60% that ARE drinkers the predominant drink of choice is likely to be beer or spirits just based on the cultural significance of these beverages which is greater in the US than the cultural significance of wine. Now there is plenty of evidence that wine DOES have a prestige image in our culture if one looks at wine’s placement in movies, television, and books. In these Medias, it is generally highlighted as the drink of choice for the influential and wealthy. In turn, this makes it an aspirational drink for those who may not live the lives that are highlighted in these vignettes. It turns wine into the drink for special occasions and celebrations rather than the everyday luxury that wine marketers would love.

3. Is wine losing whatever Prestige Image it does have?

Wait? Isn’t this what marketers have been wanting for years? For customers to become more comfortable choosing wine off of a wine list for their casual date night or to bring home for dinner with friends. The picnic wines or wines at the beach meant for wide accessibility with creative packaging that are meant to compete against beer and wine coolers. Now we are surprised when craft beers and ciders have decided to use the wine model but position themselves at a more budget friendly price point? The very fact that sales of wines above $9.00 continue to grow is evidence that wine is NOT losing the prestige image that it holds in the minds of consumers. The issue is that craft beers and ciders have been able to also don the cloak of a prestige image and have ended up being far more accessible to the everyday consumer. Budweiser even took aim at this philosophy during their Super Bowl commercial recently (See it Here if you missed it) trying to distance themselves from the craft beer movement by positioning craft beers in a “snobbish” light. Paste Magazine breaks down this ad in spectacular fashion here if you are interested including pointing out that AB-Inbev actually owns craft breweries.

Awkward…

Anyway, the underlying issue is not that wine in general is losing a prestige image. It is that wines sub $9.00 are losing market share by customers are turning to other beverages in the same price points that are perceived as slightly more prestigious.

4. Is this a bad thing for the wine industry?

Not really.

For makers and marketers of wines above $9.00/ 750mL, congratulations! According to Charles Caleb Colton , imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so continue doing what you’re doing but just be aware that other beverages are starting to imitate your “terroir” focused marketing and authentic story by highlighting the people behind the “craft” so to speak. Don’t get comfortable. It’s only a matter of time, particularly at the lower end of this price zone, before craft takes aim at you if it hasn’t already.

For makers and marketers of wines below $9.00/ 750mL, consider this your warning shot! You can no longer think of your competitive set as wines only. You are making a beverage. You have consumers that consider if they should have a casual glass of wine, a craft beer, or a cocktail with dinner. However, this shouldn’t be depressing. It is an opportunity to embrace new technologies, innovative packaging, and a history of an industry that was the “Original craft beverage”. So interlace your fingers, crack your knuckles, and get a nose to the creative grindstone. This segment of the market just got a whole lot bigger so these brands are going to have to fight harder for attention.

This is just my two cents… I would love to get other opinions on this!